H50 



pR^450i INTEMPERANCE 

Copy I 

THE PRELUDE TO 



GAMBLING AID SUICIDE, 

AS ILLUSTRATED IN THE LIFE OF THE 

REV. C. C. COLTON, 

AUTHOR OF "LA€0N;" 



BY 



LEWIS C. LEVIN; 



DELIVERED EKFORE THE SOCIETIES ATTACHED TO LA FAYETTE 

COLLEGE, EASTON, SEPTEMBER 18, 1844, AND 

PUBLISHED BY THEIR REQUEST^ 



PHILADELPHIA: 
PRINTED BY WILLIAM F. GEDDES, 

No. 112 Chesnut Street. 

1845. 



'^ ^ "^ M \ «\ 



^"> 



^ REV. C. C. COLTON. 

In the creation of intellectual power, there is a Divinity that 
shapes our ends, which reason seeks in vain to baffle, — which 
pride labours in vain to escape. Genius, magnificent in its dis- 
play of imagination — proud in its consciousness of power — tow- 
ering in its ambition — vast in the grandeur and sweep of its 
sublime conceptions — aspires to surpass the limits of human 
achievement — spreads out its daring pinions to the wild breeze of 
fancy — and pants to conquer time and space, in one bold flight, 
as if the victory was only to be the daughter of the wish, and to 
be great was only to be ambitious. However potent this delu- 
sion, it is experience only, that can dissipate a dream which fills 
the heart with rapture, and intoxicates the mind to madness. In 
the consciousness of power, the daring of genius loses sight of 
the existence of impossibilities, and becomes insensible that it can 
err or fall. Lulled to the confidence of safety by the song of its 
own triumphs, it becomes a prey to the delusion, that its intellec- 
tual power can avert its moral downfall ; that its mighty ener- 
gies can grasp evil to its bosom and yet escape the poison of its 
• fangs — sweeping with its golden plumes the lowest pits of pesti- 
lential vice, without soiling their lustre, or losing their elasticity. 

It is in the daring character of genius, that we behold at once, 
the grandeur of its conceptions, and the imbecility of its virtue ; 
the gorgeous magnificence of its courage, shaded by the humility 
if not shame of its vanquished feebleness. What so vast that ge- 
nius will not attempt to grasp? What so colossal that it will not 
struggle to subdue? What so dangerous that it will not dare to 
front? Treating difficulties with derision, it overcomes them. 
Opposing energy to dangers, it subdues them. Wherever mind 
grapples with mind, or struggles with matter, it triumphs. But 
here end all the victories ; here subsides all the glory of genius. 
Temptation overwhelms it ! 

On the field where it presumes to display most courage, where 
it vaunts invincible strength, and boasts Herculean power, it sinks 
to the impotence of infancy. Where the passions wage their im^ 



petuous war against virtue, or clothed in syren smiles, they 
chaunt seductive strains of melody in pleasure's ear, Genius like 
a naked child, sinks helpless beneath their feet. It can repel vio- 
lence — it can resist oppression — it can vanquish force — it can dare 
— do — defy — struggle — expire in any combat, with foes that rouse 
its ire, or kindle its revenge — but it cannot resist temptation. Be- 
fore the smiles of beauty, it melts a helpless victim. In the vor- 
tex of dissipation, it sinks never to rise again. The excitements 
of wine, exhilarate it to madness ; the pleasures of the world be- 
wilder it to its ruin. Smiles overwhelm it. 

What a strange delusion, that on the only point of its weakness, 
Genius deems itself invincible ! On this rock split all the great 
minds, that with fatal temerity, trusting to their fortitude and 
powers of resistance, yield themselves helpless slaves to tempta- 
tion ! Reeling powerless through the world of pleasure, to find 
repose only in that grave dug by their own vices, intemperance 
and guilt. 

An extraordinary illustration of the truth of these remarks is 
presented in the erratic character and variable career of the Rev. 
C. C. Colton ; a man, whose talents have formed so remarkable a 
theme for admiration to the world, while his vices have excited a 
strain of lamentation, not inferior to the compassion which hu- 
manity has poured in eloquent tones of tenderness over his mel- 
ancholy and premature end. It has been left for a clergyman, a 
poet, and a scholar of the nineteenth century, to display to the 
wondering gaze of a startled world, the ruinous career of a liber- 
tine, who appreciated virtue, reverenced religion, and was fami- 
liar with life, both as a subject for pleasure, and as a pledge for 
immortality — and yet could neither bend to the laws of the one, 
bow to the holiness of the other, nor enjoy, without abusing, the 
pleasures, passions, and raptures of the last ! 

Singular as it may seem, and startling as it is, it has been left 
for our own enlightened era to demonstrate, in the person of its 
most luminous philosopher, the utter futility of human wisdom, 
sparkling wit, and profound scholarship, to afford an anchor for 
the passions, amidst the storms and commotions of life. So fami- 
liar with the world as to treat it as a toy, and handle it like a 
plaything — yet he became its dupe and fell a victim to its frauds. 
So convinced of the poison of Intemperance, as to moralize oob'" 



on its folly, as well as its guilt; yet he wallowed in its excesses 
till he became its slave. And so sensible of the madness of gam- 
ing, as to make the blood tingle in the veins of him who reads his 
account of its horrors ; yet he became what he most loathed upon 
earth, the unparalleled proficient, the triple crowned monster of 
Drunkard, Gambler and Suicide ! Why ? Because he defied temp- 
tation. That temptation which is to guilt, what the torch fires 
are to the moth that flutter around the warmth of the blaze, only 
to become victims to the flame — that temptation — to resist which, 
is itself virtue ! 

The author of " Lacon" has acquired a fame so brilliant, and a 
celebrity so unbounded, as to substitute the title of his Book for 
the name of the man ; and thousands and tens of thousands who 
have never heard whispered the name of the Rev. C. C. Colton, 
quote with fluency the wise sayings of the sententious "Lacon," 
while they bow in the homage of admiration to the giant might 
of his genius. 

Among the ancient sages, whether renowned for philosophy, 
or immortalized as legislators ; or among the Bards of Greece 
and Rome, chaunting the siege of Troy, or humming the sonnets 
of love, — or among the Modern Poets, Authors, and Philosophers, 
I know of none who have achieved more universal renown than 
the author of " Lacon." Even Shakespeare, the most popular of 
all Poets, from his unequalled faculty of painting the passions of 
nature in its own language, has failed to acquire that singular 
concentration of glory which extinguishes the name of the author 
in the title of his work. For while the local dialects and provin- 
cial idioms of "the Bard of Avon," have obstructed the transfu- 
sion of his beautiful thoughts and divine sentiments into all other 
languages, the classic elegance of "Lacon" glides into all other 
tongues, with the eloquent facility of an universal idiom, seeking 
its affinity, and at home in every land, where there is language to 
clothe wit, or words to embody wisdom. Pagan literature fur- 
nishes no parallel to the universal fame of liacon. It is in the 
Bible only, that an equal celebrity can be shown ; and that, only, 
in two of its most illustrious teachers — from whose hallowed lips 
fell the inspiration that has baffled the tempests of time, and sur- 
vived the crash of empires, the convulsions of nature, and the 
passions of men. 



What a commentary on the power of Intellect, when created 
in the colossal mould of genius, that can wrestle with time, and 
vanquish all impediments in its pathway to glory, is such a fame! 
whose stupendous grasp and vivid lustre, challenge all profane 
history to produce his equal in vain. " Lacon" stands alone, like 
a Temple of the Cities of the Plain on whose naked bosom no 
other vestige of magnificence remains ; a grand and solitary 
monument of the power of man, swept into annihilation by the 
wrath of God, yet sparing one mighty pile, one gorgeous mass of 
mutilated beauty, in mercy to the hopes of man, as a warning 
to his presumption, and as an incentive to his powers; as an evi- 
dence at once, of the omnipotence of God, and the tremendous 
invention of the creature, yvho so often aspires to be more than 
human, and only falls when he dares to forget his fallibility ! 

To tread on the ashes of the desolated plain, where cities have 
once proudly reared their temples to the skies, and massive monu- 
ments of sublime construction spread their broken columns at our 
feet, is so analagous to the task of him who undertakes to dis- 
course of the genius, the career and the doom of Colton, as to 
conjure up to the imagination, all the pomp and prideof the Assy- 
rian monarch, who immortalized Babylon by the sumptuousness 
of his luxury, and the elegance of his vices; the pomp of his effe- 
minacy and the gorgeous splendour of his crimes ; the violence 
of his polished passions, and the overwhelming luxuriance of his 
pampered appetites ; the imposing splendour of his pageant hfe, 
and the grovelling infamy of his cowardly death, voluptuous even 
to the last sigh of his bosom. 

Where, amidst the ruins of the fame of Colton, shall I search 
for the history of his life ? A glory so universal is seldom unattend- 
ed by the pen of panegyric, the lamentations of friendship, the 
detail of the biographer, or the flattery of the executor. Around 
the glory of the sun, there will always cluster minor planets, bask- 
ing in his beams, and radiant with the shower of light that in his 
pathway, he scatters upon all who follow in his track. The most 
humble bard who strikes the feblest lyre with the most timid hand, 
will always find a friend, a follower, or a votary, to sing his praises, 
and share the reflected lustre of his little fame, if it be honour- 
able to claim the credit of his friendship. How few who live 
in the mouths of men through all time — who have achieved 



glory by wakening in the minds of others, the thoughts that burn, 
or in their bosoms, the feelings that thrill their hearts with rap- 
ture, how few ever die, without extorting from some passion of 
our nature, the memorial of love, of admiration, or of esteem ? 
In a rapid survey of the records of human history, not one can 
I remember, save Colton, who have startled the world by the 
giant powers of an immortal Intellect, and yet have gone down to 
the grave with no written tribute to their manly worth; no beam- 
ing portrait, painted by the pencil of affection, or of esteem. 

No ! we have no biography of C. C. Colton! 

Why have we none? Had Lacon no friend? 

The echoes that reverberate the question, confound the under- 
standing by the awful silence that hangs around his grave. 

Why have wg none? Had Lacon no glory. Hush! Hush! 

Who more celebrated ? Who in point of genius, more worthy 
of engrossing the pen of the historian, or inspiring the imagination 
of the poet to chaunt his praise ? Why should the blackness of 
night, awful and mysterious in its murky shroud, envelope the his- 
tory of the man, whose name is a cloud of fire, — and whose glory 
is the radiance of the sun — whose soul was the giant that can slay 
error in her dark caverns, and array truth in her robes of over- 
powering effulgence ? • 

An answer rises in mournful tones of melancholy dread, from 
the mists that overshadow the doom of the most unfortunate of 
the sons of genius : — it rises from the mists of the tomb ! 

The author of "Lacon" was a drunkard, a gambler and a sui- 
cide ! What perfume can overpower the smell of blood ! How the 
soul shudders and shrinks, under the overwhelming humility of its 
frailty, when made sensible of the reeling imbecility of the physi- 
cal man, whose genius could rival the wisdom of imperial pro- 
phets, and engrave lessons of learning on the hearts of Unborn 
generations of children, as if endowed with a divine instinct, to 
imprint the wisdom of heaven, in all the simplicity of natural truth \ 
Who can believe that reads his noble effusions, that "Colton" was 
a drunkard, — a gambler, — and a suicide ! The contradiction seems 
too monstrous for belief. The mind revolts from the irreconcila- 
ble discrepancy, between a genius so splendid, and a moral and 
physical propensity so grovelling, so debased, so abandoned! 
What! such a man of genius a drunkard ? Yes, that is possible! 



8 

For we have seen it in a Burns ! in a Byron ! in a Sheridan ! but 
a gambler! and a suicide! Here the reason and the judgment be- 
come bewildered by conflicting doubts! Yet what is the scale of 
dechne in the career of vice? Begin with drunkenness, and where 
can you fix the limits of descending depravity 1 Extinguish the rea- 
son — let the divine light of the soul go out, stifled by the fumes 
of intoxication, whether these fumes rise from the goblet of cham- 
pagne and madeira, of hock or burgundy — or the more ignoble 
glass of whiskey, beer or rum, and who shall say whether the 
brute man freed from his divine guide, will rush on murder, or 
turn to the gamester's hell, or plunge into the suicide's grave ! The 
fate of " Colton," only illustrates the common power of the wine 
cup, over the destiny of its victim. Bereft of reason, what is the 
man reeling under the noble exhilaration of champagne, but the 
furious lion, lashing his untamed passions into madness, or the 
frantic tiger, bounding and leaping on his prey, with foaming 
mouth, and wide distended jaws, hungrj'- for blood, and panting 
to destroy ! What shall oppose his course ? Not his friend, for 
now he would sweep him from his path by a pistol ball as his 
most deadly foe. Not his wife, for even her, would he murder in 
the boiling wrath of his brutal passions, should she dare to cross 
his path, when the demon is raging in his heart, that turns love 
into hate, and transforms the very milk of kindness into the bitter 
venom of hell. Not his conscience, for it has fled with his reason. 
Not his honour for that is the offspring of conscience. Not his 
shame, for that departed with his sobriety. Not his love of glory, 
for ambition never yet cohabited with infamy. What then shall 
restrain the drunkard from becoming the gamester and the suicide? 
Not religion, for that would have prevented him from becoming a 
drunkard ! 

Once a victim to the wine-cup, and the fall is not only easy, 
but irresistible to every stage of crime. In the inebriate, the de- 
gradation of human intellect is complete. There is no lower stage 
of shame, or of infamy, though there is a more perfect consumma- 
tion of crime, which lies coiled up and enveloped in his soul, like 
a nest of serpents, waiting only the brooding wrath of passion, to 
hatch "the bloody progeny of hell!" Fall down to the lowest point 
of moral guilt he may, covered with the blood of his dearest friend, 
in the deadly duel, or the wife of his bosom, in frantic passion, 



9 

wreaking cowardly revenge upon helpless weakness — but perpe- 
trated or not his soul once drunk, has conceived the horrid crimes, 
from which accidental insensibility may have snatched him. 

From one excitement to another, the transition is easy and 
natural, sated by the exhilaration of the goblet, the gnawing irrita- 
tion of the mind flies with the ardour of love, and the infatuation 
of passion to the still fiercer excitements of the gaming table, 
where, without being drunk, the soul may lose all consciousness of 
life in the raging fever of hope and fear. Few sober men visk 
the gaming table, for shame deters all, but callous villainy from 
the acquisition of money, by the mere accident of chance, th6 
game to the sober, looks too much like open robbery, to be prose- 
cuted with the vigour necessary to insure success. Hence the 
gambler is apt to be a drunkard, and the drunkard, almost by ah 
irresistible fatality turns gamester — thus forming a combination 
of low, vile, detestable and infamous qualities, from which to ex- 
pect good would be worse than folly, or, to be surprised at evil, of 
any description, would imply inexperience, if not denote fatuity. 

"Colton/' was a clergyman, of the Church of England, a scho- 
lar, a wit, a man of the world, a votary of pleasure, and the 
companion of noblemen ! Imbibing the habits, as he imitated the 
manners of an order of men whose destiny dooms them, either to 
shine in the cabinet, or roll in the kennel — he found a license in 
the fashion of the times, first for the intemperance of the din- 
ner table and lastly for the wild excitements of the gamester's 
hell. There is, in the excesses of the bottle, a sense of degrada- 
tion so keen, as to drive a refined mind, to what are deemed no- 
bler stimulants, which inflame, without driving their victim into 
insensibility. The gaming table among English noblemen, is the 
natural sequel of the day's dissipation, winding up the fashionable 
occupations of idleness, by inflaming the passions to the deliberate 
perpetuation of fashionable robbery ; and blunting the sense of 
honour so efiectually, as to reduce the plunder and ruin of a friend, 
to an act, at once meritorious, manly and consoling. This hallu- 
cination even extends to Kfe, and the utterance of a hasty word, 
wrung from the tortured heart, by the anguish of impending ruin, 
is sufficient to increase the merit of the gambler, should he be- 
come guilty of the murder of his dearest friend. By a rational 

extension of the same principle, the victim who has been plucked 
2 



10 

of his last guinea by his best friend, whose credit is worn thread- 
bare, and whose fortunes, are of ttiat class termed desperate, — is 
admonished by the cold looks of his former companions, that he 
has no honourable refuge, but in the doom of the suicide. Fallen 
into poverty, — a victim to inebriation — a disgrace to his friends 
— the dread of scorn, the sneer of contempt, the pang of con- 
tumely soon complete his loathsomeness of life — till in the fit of 
desperation that forms the climax of a man, to whom even "hope 
is dead," he grasps the pistol of the suicide, and leaves his car- 
cass, as a monument of the depravity of his own career, and the cold 
heartlessness of his companions — who first seduce, then plunder, 
and finally forsake him. 

In the fashionable habits of that class of society, who tempt the 
wit, the genius, and the man of learning, to forsake the path of 
temperance, for the giddy heights of the goblet, the fascination of 
the sparkling banquet, and the wild mania of the gaming table, 
resides a radical error, that sheds a most consuming blight upon 
the face of social happiness. It would be idle to dissemble the 
fact, that fashion bears an imperious sway over the mightiest 
minds, which religion, morals and principle, fail to exercise and 
are ineffectual to repel. It is in the highest range of hills, that 
the mountain torrent first gathers its infant waters, before it bursts 
with desolating violence on the plains below. It is from the high- 
est strata of society, that vices flow down upon the more humble 
members, who look with admiring wonder upon the lofty splendour 
that casts them into shape. The fashion of dissipation, in the high, 
becomes the fever of intemperance in the middle and more infe- 
rior classes. The glow of rank, the glitter of wealth, the imposing 
beauty of taste, all add to the baneful influence of vice, in the no- 
bleman, and the gentleman, by shedding around it a halo, that not 
only strips it of its deformity, but invests it with a charm. The 
imitator of his superior, while catching the vice that brands him 
with infamy, or prepares him for crime, forgets to discriminate be- 
tween the power of that wealth, which secures impunity to the 
opulent profligate, and the impotence of that poverty, which 
dooms the humble to shame for his transgression. 

While nature always competent to protect herself, vindicates 
her own principles by the physical and mental punishment of the 
votaries of intemperance — public opinion, formed from the social 



11 

decrees of infallible reason, protects the nnass of society from 
the fruits of its brutalizing shame. If wealth and rank, can rise 
superior to that salutary curb on infannous propensities, they can- 
not evade the penalty which nature imposes for their transgres- 
sions, in bodies made loathsome by disease,-^in a progeny rendered 
imbecile by indulgence, nor can they escape that dread accounta- 
bility to God, which the endless future of a world of retribution, 
expiation, and atonement, opens before them. But the author of 
"liacon" was a clergyman of the Church of England ! Could not 
religion restrain, save and reclaim him ? Did the balm of heaven, 
fall upon his heart, as upon a barren rock? 

It did — And what is the inference? His heart was not imbued 
with vital religion. To be a clergyman, is not at all times to be 
a Christian ; especially in that country, where the church estab- 
lishment is vested in the patronage of the nobility, for the tempo- 
ral benefit of their younger sons. " Colton" was a clergyman, 
which, in England, means only that his income was derived from 
church rates. His wit made him a man of fashion. His learning 
made him a man of influence. His genius made him a man of 
dissipation. His dissipation made him a suicide ! 

Nothing is more fatal to virtue, than the sensitive temperament 
of genius. Nervous, irritable, and imaginative, the man of rich 
endowments of intellect, becomes a mere infant in the tempest 
tost sea of temptation. His yielding sympathies bow to every 
breeze that wafts around him. If I'lcasure but nods to him, with- 
out waiting for her to open her arms, he rushes to her embrace. 
If applause rings in his ears, at the felicity of his wit, or the pow- 
er of his reason, he loses all self-control, and riots in the delirium 
of anticipated fame, only to fall into the snares of the flatterer, or 
follow in the track of the libertine. Receiving all nature into 
the laboratory of his imagination, there to mould it into fresh 
forms of beauty, he becomes as pliant to surrounding circum- 
stances, as lie is powerful in converting every external element to 
the nourishment and vigor of his own conceptions. Mysterious 
and inexplicable power of genius ! That like an infant yields to 
every embrace of smiling emotion, and yet like a giant, can grap- 
ple with mountains and forge a new creation from thy mental 
furnace? Irresistible! Impetuous! Overpowering Genius ! In in- 
tellectual might so transcendant ! In moral energy so Imbecile — 



12 

in virtuous resolution so feeble — in manly self-denial so powerless 
— at once the wonder of men, the marvel of the world, the para- 
gon of animals — and the puppet of the worst passions, that reduce 
the God of reason to the level of brute matter ! Illustrious spec- 
tacle of power and imbecility, over which humanity weeps her 
tears of compassion, while admiration shouts her applause for her 
achievements of science, her works of art, and her monuments of 
invention. 

The susceptibility of genius to external impressions, can never 
however, be admitted as a plea in extenuation of vice, for that 
susceptibility is counterbalanced by powers of reason denied to 
less gifted mortals, and obviously designed to counteract that in- 
tensity and vividness of impression, which is supposed to render 
it a hopeless victim to surrounding influences. This latent ener- 
gy of great minds, snatches thousands from ruin. It saved Dr. 
Johnson from bepoming a drunkard. Goldsmith from becoming a 
vagabond, and Shakespeare from turning a highway robber. Who 
can believe that Savage, the Poet, could not have become as illus- 
trious an e:^ample of piety, as his friend Dr. Johnson, had he ral- 
lied the vast energies of his soul, and cast himself in prayer at 
the footstool of a merciful God ! Who can believe, but that Byron, 
endowed with such tremendous energies of mind, could as readily 
have directed that power to self-denial, as to self-indulgence? And 
who can believe, but that the same genius which made Colton a 
drunkard, a gamester and a suicide, would have secured him, if 
properly directed, habits of temperance and virtue; a life of piety, 
and a death-bed of Christian tranquillity, free from a single pang 
of compunction and remorse, and a monument prouder than the 
pyramids of Egypt ! 

On this subject, Lacon himself has given an admirable lesson 
from his own mouth. He says; 

" The great examples of Bacon, of Milton, of Newton, of 
Locke and of others, happen to be directly against the popular 
inference that a certain wildness of eccentricity, and thoughtless- 
ness of conduct are the necessary accompaniments of talents and 
the rare indications of genius. Because some have united these 
extravagances with great demonstrations of talent, as a Rosseau, 
a Chatterton, a Burns, or a Byron; others finding it less difiicult 
to be eccentric than to be brilliant, have therefore adopted the 



13 

one, in hopes that the world would give them credit for the other. 
But the greatest genius is never so great, as when it is chastised and 
subdued by the highest reason. And be it remembered, that minds 
of the very highest order, who have given an unrestrained course 
to their caprice or their passions, would have been so much higher 
by subduing them.^^ 

Can we excuse such a man for his vices? 

And who, while listening to such exalted sentiments of pure 
morality, ever could suspect, that they flowed from the pen of a 
giant genius, who had fallen into the infamy of intemperance and 
gambling, as the prelude to suicide? Alas! for the inconsistency 
of Genius ! 

It is manifest from every page of his works, that Colton was a 
man deeply tinged with every worldly passion, and that while 
his physical nature was prone to the unrestrained gratification of 
fierce desires and degrading appetites, that his intellectual spirit 
soared into purer regions, basking in the sunlight of the highest 
moral peaks that overshadowed the pathway of life. In every 
sentiment that flows in golden wisdom from his fluent pen, we 
trace the features of a bright spirit fallen into ruin ! Of a noble 
genius, who had lingered among the caverns of life, till his efful- 
gence had been soiled and tarnished by the murky contact of de- 
pravity. In the very first paragraph of his Preface to " Lacon," 
we find this celestial garment, clinging about his limbs, wet with 
the unwholesome perspiration that agony distills from the hot at- 
mosphere of the gambler's " hell," showing that his soul had be- 
come so imbued with cards, that even to think through the me- 
dium of the gamester's passion, had become indispensable to his 
perspicuity. Listen to the opening of Lacon ! 

" There are three difficulties in authorship; to write any thing 
w^orth publishing ; to find honest men to publish it ; and to get 
sensible men to read it. Literature has now become a game, in 
which the booksellers are the kings — the critics the knaves — the 
public the pack, and the poor Author the mere table or thing 
played upon." 

Little did he think when these lines were written in all the play- 
fulness of metaphor, drawn from the favorite passion of his heart, 
that this table and that pack would plunge him into the premature 
grave of the desperate gambler ! 



14 

In another part of this same Preface, I find a sort of regretful and 
pensive confession, that his better nature had been led astray by 
worldly passions, contrary to his own judgment. He says ; 

" He who studies Books alone, will know how things ought to 
be; and he that studies me;i will know how things are; and it 
would have been impossible to have written these pages, without 
mixing somewhat more freely with the world, than inclination 
might prompt, or judgment approve." 

Here, we discern the sun-burst of a Divine Intellect, breaking 
through the clouds of dissipation that enthrolled him in despite of 
conscience, which is evidently implied in the term, "judgment 
approve," but which obviously means, a higher and more sacred 
monitor, whose still small whisperings carried to his soul, the 
crash of thunder, armed with the power of God. And yet, though 
it appalled, it could not sway him — though it fell like the knell of 
fate upon his mind, it could not arrest his fatal career, or snatch 
him from the gulf that yawned to devour him. The melody of 
the syren spell bound his heart in pleasure. 

What a world of human destiny — of evil — of guilt — of misery 
— of remorse — is contained in the few lines I have just quoted ! 
Understood, according to the key, which a knowledge of the man 
of the world places in our hands, what a field of libertinism do 
they not display to view — expansive in every odious vice — un- 
bounded in every loathsome passion — fertile in every bitter pang! 

In that extraordinary Book called " Lacon," how many startling 
beauties of a lofty and refined soul arrest attention, and make us 
pause with wonder to inquire — " Could this have been written by 
an inebriate? Can these be the thoughts of a gamester? Are those 
indeed the reflections of a suicide?" Yes, alas! Such is humanity, 
when its frail nature permits the sentinel discretion, to slumber at 
his post, or the enemy of reason. Intemperance, to invade the 
tranquil enclosure of the passions that keep watch over virtue. 

Yet the man who spent so much of his life in drinking and 
other debasing vices, that found their consummation only in a 
voluntary death, could, with pride in his eye, and dignity on his 
brow, pen these lines, as if in satire upon his own duplicity. 

*' Mental pleasures never cloy; unlike those of the body they 
are increased by repetition, approved of by reflection, and 
strengthened by enjoyment." 



15 

What a commentary on the philosophy of Lacon. 

One more passage from Lacon, obtrudes itself, as presenting one 
of the most extraordinary examples of moral contrast, to the life of 
this singular man, to be found in the whole range of human histo- 
ry. The quotation is worthy of being engraven on every human 
heart. He says, speaking of Reason as superior to instinct; . 

" Five thousand years have added no improvement to the hive 
of the bee, or to the house of the beaver ; but look at the habita- 
tions and achievements of man ; observe Reflection, Experience, 
Judgment, at one time enabling the head to save the hand ; at an- 
other dictating a wise and prospective economy exemplified in the 
most lavish expenditure of means, but to be paid with the most 
usurious interest, by the final accomplishment of ends. We might 
also add another distinction, peculiar, I conceive, to Reason, the 
deliberate choice of a small presefit evil, to obtain a greater distant 
good: he that on all necessary occasions can act upon this single 
principle, is as superior to other men, as other men to the brutes. 
And as the exercise of this principle is the perfection of Reason, 
it happens, also, as might have been anticipated, to form the chief 
task assigned us by Religion, and this task is in a great measure 
accomplished, from the moment our lives exhibit a practical assent 
to one eternal and immutable truth ; the necessary andjinal connection 
between happiness and virtue and misery and vice /" 

Not often do we meet with the sweet consolations of a religious 
feeling in the writings of "Colton," but when we do, astonishment 
is naturally excited, that they did not exercise a more absolute 
sway, over his susceptible nature, and rescue him from the rag- 
ing torrent of passions, that finally drove him to rush into the 
presence of his God, with all his sins upon his head, unannointed, 
unannealed ? Feeling, deep, powerful, tender, full of pathos, and 
melting even into womanish softness, was a prominent trait of his 
heart, which while it was prone to overflow with benevolence, 
yet was often made bitter, by his experience of the world's selfish- 
ness, and its destitution of sympathy, for the tender emotions of 
our better nature. In his poem of the " Hypocrite," we behold 
all this softness of his nature, gushing out in turbid billows of bit- 
ter thoughts, turned acid by the uncongenial insensibility of those 
around him. How admirably tuned by fine affections was the 
bosom of such a man to the softening rays of religious love ! And 



16 

why did his heart reject the profferd boon? Why did his bosom 
recoil from the gentle embrace of Piety? Why did his soul freeze 
into the coldness of stoic apathy, and hush its soft whisper- 
ings of love, in the stern resolves of callous pride ? Why, when 
the world crushed his heart, his bleeding, wounded, palpitating 
heart ; why did he turn, with cold averted look, from the smiling 
benignity of the Christian's hope ? Because, deluded man, he mis- 
took the poison for the balm ;— and had seized the wine cup, to 
drown those sorrows, for a season, to which it but added more 
terrific agony, when, temporary oblivion past, it was succeeded 
by aggravated horrors. Acute, sensitive, intense, morbid, and 
nervous, must have been the feelings of "Colton." Every senti- 
ment of his mind betrays it — every page of his writings records 
it — every sentence of his cynical wisdom reveals it. He was a 
man of crushed hopes and withered heart. Perhaps love, blighted 
in its sunny season of blossoms, by the adverse blast of disap- 
pointment, or mounting ambition, that last infirmity of noble minds, 
coeval with the infant throbs of genius, and lusting to rule with 
every swelling tide of burning thought ! Whatever the cause, we 
behold the heart of Colton a volcano of boiling lava, surrounded 
by the cold cinders of the wise cynic, and the biting sarcasm of the 
half suppressed satyrist ; — his life a load of agony concealed be- 
neath the wine leaves of Bacchus, and panting under the desperate 
excitements of the gambler's god— blind chance! What a picture 
for humanity to weep over I For philosophy to deplore ! For reli- 
gion to mourn ! 

But for the goblet, Colton bad been religious ! 

But for the goblet, he had been happy ! 

But for the goblet he had been honoured ! 

Colton was a Poet. His vivid imagination burns on every line. 
His intense feelings gash forth in despite of the cold maxims of 
philosophy, the rigid structure of prose — the scorching sarcasm 
of satire, lashing the proud hypocrisy of man; or the frigid judg- 
ment that could dissect the anatomy of human emotions, in order 
to discover the nerve of the predominant passion. His dissecting 
knife, was wreathed with roses, even to the heel of the handle; 
and perfumes scented the air, admidst the moral ofl^al, that in his 
operations, he was forced to fling about, in order to obtain a clear 
view of his dead subject. 



17 

It is not among the least curious or the least instructive of the 
characteristic features of "Colton" to know what were his opin- 
ions in relation to suicide ! — to life ! and to religion ! Though an 
Author may often write, what he does not believe, yet, as a gene- 
ral rule, it is reasonable to infer, that when he writes earnestly, he 
records his sincere opinions. Judging the Author of "Lacon," by 
this rule, he was well prepared by his train of thought, for the life 
he led, the dissipation he indulged in, and the tragic end that 
crowned with appropriate horror a career of vice, profligacy, and 
irreligion. It is true, that he professed to believe in Christianity, 
which, as a minister of God, he could not openly renounce — but 
how does he express himself in relation to belief in its doctrines'? 
Hear him. — He puts a question hypothetically, in reference to the 
truth of Christian Revelation. 

" We should embrace the Christian Religion, says 'Colton,' even 
on prudential motives; for a just and benevolent God, will not 
punish an intellectual being, for believing what there is so much 
reason to believe ; therefore, we run no risk by receiving Chris- 
tianity, if it be false, but a dreadful one by rejecting it if it be true." 

A proposition more replete with false logic, contradiction, and 
danger, to the Christian Religion, cannot be found in the most of- 
fensive and rank productions of avowed infidelity, aiming at the 
total overthrow of the whole system on which Faith erects her 
altar consecrated to an immortal existence. 

Of his opinions of life, and the estimation in which he held the 
human heart, some idea may be formed from the following passage 
from Lacon. 

" Those who have a thorough knowledge of the human heart, will 
often produce all the best effects of the virtues, by a subtle appeal 
to the vanities of those with whom they have to do ; and can cause 
the very weakness of our minds, indirectly to contribute to the fur- 
therance of measures, from whose strength the powersof our minds 
would perhaps recoil, as unequal and inefficient. A preacher 
in the neighborhood of Biackfriars, not undeservedly popular, 
had just finished an exhortation strongly recommending the liberal 
support of a certain very meritorious Institution. The congrega- 
tion was numerous, and the chapel crowded to excess. The dis- 
course being finished, the plate was about to be handed round to 
the respective pews, when the preacher made this short address 
3 



18 

to the congregation. ' From the great sympathy I have witness- 
ed in your countenances, and the strict attention you have hon- 
oured me with, there is only one thing I am afraid of; that some 
of you may feel inclined to give too much ; now it is my duty to 
inform you, that justice, though not so pleasant, yet should always 
be a prior virtue to generosity ; therefore, as you will all be imme- 
diately waited upon in your respective pews, I wish to have it 
thoroughly understood that no person will think of putting any 
thing into the plate, who cannot pay his debts.' I need not add, says 
Colton, that this advice produced a most overflowing collection." 

The viciousness of this story consists in the cold-blooded ad- 
vice of Colton, to produce the best effects of the virtues without 
reference to their actual existence ; to produce false charity by 
stratagem, and so of all the other virtues that ought to adorn the 
heart, not owe their semblance to the head. 

In all the voluminous beauties of Lacon, I find but one opinion 
of gamesters ; and that is awfully prophetic of his own fate. He 
says; 

" The Gambler if he die a martyr to his profession is doubly ruin- 
ed. He adds his soul to every other loss, and by the act of sui- 
cide, renounces earth to foi'feit heaven !" 

Who could ever anticipate that the author of a picture so 
horrible, would ever have filled the grave he so fearfully de- 
scribed ? 

Drunkenness, the vice that lured him to suicide, he thus de- 
scribes; '-Drunkenness is the vice of a good constitution, or of a bad 
memory ; of a constitution so treacherously good, that it never 
bends until it breaks; or, of a memory that recollects the plea- 
sure of getting drunk, but forgets the pains of getting sober." 

If Lacon has written great wisdom, so has he certainly written 
great folly. He affixes an if to the Christian Religion ; and dis- 
courses of the pleasure of getting drunk. And yet with all its 
faults, what Author is superior 1 What work more useful ? What 
learning more profound? What wit more dazzling? 

Having drained the cup of pleasure to the dregs, in his own 
country, having exhausted London of its revels — worn out his 
fickle fortunes at every gaming table — ruined his credit — and 
brought the blush of shame to the cheek of his disgusted friends 
— Colton, like all the broken down votaries of chance, abandoned 



19 

his native land, in the hope, that on the continent he could better 
his condition. Paris, of course loomed glaringly in his eye, as 
the Eden of the desperate gambler : — Paris ! the capital of hope 
to the bankrupt nobleman— the climate of health to the worn out 
debauchee — the last stage on which the gambler acts, and on 
which he so often dies ! — Where kings congregate to dispose of 
dynasties, and swindlers resort to plot depredations — where ge- 
unis may find its peer, and villainy never fail of a companion ; 
but where virtue cannot resort for safety ; nor remorse to com- 
plete penitence, or commence reformation. 

Driven out, rather than self banished by his vices from London, 
— Colton, ignominious as a clergyman, and disgraced as a man, 
was next discovered as an inmate of the most degraded "hells" 
of Paris. When he arrived there, or how long he remained, are 
matters of little moment, in estimating a career, whose final 
plunge into ruin, was so horrible and overwhelming. Imagination 
can readily draw a picture of his life, from the catastrophe of its 
end ; and while we may compassionate the dread infatuation of 
the victim, we cannot withhold a rigorous condemnation of the 
culprit. The agony that wrung his soul in protracted tortures, 
may be inferred from the means he resorted to, in order to escape 
from the consciousness of misery ; but of these miseries he was 
himself the parent ; being the self-tormentor, the self-accuser, the 
self-destroyer! Whom, then, could he upbraid? Whom could he 
chide ? To whom could he appeal for succour and consolation, 
but to that power, against whom, he had turned his back 1 He had 
no refuge but in religion, and 1 have shown from his sentiments, 
as he himself proved from his life, that the sacred consolations 
and melting love of Divine truth, was to him a sealed book. 
From this single point, germed his total ruin. Had he but served 
his God, as he had served the world, he would not have been for- 
saken in his extremity. 

No man who ever departed from the high and broad path of 
virtue, had so little to excuse his derelictions as Colton. His 
living furnished him a competency. He could not plead the stings 
of poverty in palliation of the aberrations of youth. He was a 
scholar, and scanned all men with a learned eye ; and could not 
alledge ignorance in defence of his depravity. He was a world- 
ling, and therefore forewarned of the fate that overtakes the vo- 



20 

tary of the wine bottle, and the gaming table. He was a clergy- 
man, and had every high inducement to tread the path of glory 
and shun the byways of shame. He was a philosopher and well 
qualified to affix a rational value to every enjoyment; foreknow- 
ing the penalty attending a departure from right. Would that I 
could add that in his heart he had been a Christian, and feared 
God! In that event I should have been saved the trouble of this lec- 
ture on his fate. 

It is only when we contemplate the pernicious influence of a 
dissipated state of society, upon the destiny of a man so divinely 
gifted as Colton, that we become suddenly struck with the impor- 
tance of what are called in Europe, the manners and morals of 
the great ; and known in this country by the term fashionable or 
respectable. It is in this class of life, that all the enticements so 
exuberantly abound, which tempt the gifted children of genius to 
venture on that slippery margin, where pleasure sports in sun- 
beams, and dissipation revels in the melody of seeming innocence* 
Gilded by the magic influence of good society, sanctioned by its 
example — made attractive, imposing, nay, even contagious by its 
adoption— what vice can fail to find its votaries, what frailty miss 
its crowd of followers ? Is it a marvel, even that c/er^j/mew should 
fall, when the highest class of society, set the example of contami- 
nation? Is it a marvel that priests, curates, deacons, and doctors, 
imbibe the odious and detestable habit of intemperance, when the 
prince gets drunk, the peer is never sober, the earl is a brandy 
toper, and the man of fashion and of fortune an inebriate and a lib- 
ertine? I speak now of England ; intending to invite your imagi- 
nations to draw the republican parallel in plastic America, where 
madeira and champagne, cogniac and burgundy supply rank and 
fashion, with a substitute for rum, whiskey and gin, of the more 
humble and poverty-stricken followers of " the rosy god." 

Among the ancient Greeks or Romans, the genius of Colton, 
amidst all his frailties, would have procured him a monument as 
proud and imperishable as the pyramids of Egypt, and an eulo- 
gium gilded by the spirit of eloquence, perhaps hallowed by the 
music of poetry when touched by the charm of inspiration. 
Among a Christian people, and in a land consecrated to the invio- 
lable sanctity of life, from the ruffian hand of the suicide ; his 
honours turn to shame, and the pall of ignominy falls upon the 



21 

bier, where lies outstretched in the majesty of death, the ashes of 
a spirit, heroic in all things but its passions, its vices and its end. 

What a glorious commentary on Christianity, is furnished by 
the simple fact, that this illustrious man, has been commemorated 
by no biographer because of his vices ! That shame even held 
back friendship from the task, lest honour should be lost, or repu- 
tation tarnished, even while sketching the portrait of the liber- 
tine, whose life, however wretched, was a libel on humanity, an 
insult to decorum, an outrage on morals, and a crime against re- 
ligion. 

Yet there is a tear, even for poor Colton ! The religion that 
commands us to avoid his crimes, also enjoins us to forgive them. 
The sense of duty, that has denied a monument to his memory, 
likewise urges us to throw the veil of charity over his foibles. As 
a child of feeling, let feeling weep for him. As the offspring of 
Genius, let us convert our homage into compassion, and while we 
remember his errors, to avoid them, let us forgive his transgres- 
sions, as a part of that frailty, which is the common lot of man. 
The divinity of his intellect will live forever, and instruct mil- 
lions in lessons of virtue, as some atonement for an example that 
might embolden vice to imitate its superior. His infirmities have 
perished with his mortal tenement. His genius and his writings 
will endure, to shed light on remote ages; — when our times shall 
seem to posterity, as the mists of Egypt appear to us, with this 
difference only, that in the mellow tints of the radiant distance, 
the effulgence of his mind will blaze like the burning star, that 
chases the shadows of night, into the glories of the breaking 
dawn. 

If the traveller in his wanderings through distant climes, should 
ever light upon an humble stone, rearing its rustic front to mark 
the spot where the poor suicide sleeps in the silence of an humble 
grave, he would inscribe on it under the influence of feeling, ad- 
miration, pity and religion, something like this ; 
POOR COLTON ; 
In Intellect, a God ! — 
In Frailty, less than man! 
Pity gives him a tear ! Fame decrees him an immortality ! Cha 
rity flings the mantle of human frailty over errors that may only 
be remembered to be shunned. 



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